Environment and animal rights groups have praised Chipotle for its sustainable and humane practices, but its recent food poisoning outbreaks illustrate the challenges that can come with living up to this image… E. coli outbreaks linked to food from Chipotle has been reported in nine states, infecting 52 people, though officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention haven’t identified what ingredient is responsible. The chain, well-known for its burritos, uses 64 ingredients from more than 100 suppliers at its 1,900 restaurants… “If you are sourcing foods from one or two suppliers it’s easier to manage than if you have dozens of medium or smaller suppliers,” says Don Schaffner, a food science expert and professor at Rutgers University. “They may not have the resources to do food safety.”
Scientists: Rapidly Warming Ocean is a Key Factor in Collapse of New England’s Cod Fishery
The rapid warming of waters off New England is a key factor in the collapse of the region’s cod fishery, and changes to the species’ management are needed to save one of America’s oldest industries, according to a report published Thursday in Science magazine… The scientists behind the Science report say the warming of the Gulf of Maine, which accelerated from 2004 to 2013, reduced cod’s capacity to rebound from fishing pressure. The report gives credence to the idea — supported by advocacy groups, fishing managers and even some fishermen — that climate change has played a role in cod’s collapse… Malin Pinsky, a biology professor at Rutgers University who was not involved in the study, said the findings help explain the northern shift in the cod’s population. Researchers reported this month that numbers are improving in the colder waters off Newfoundland and Labrador… “What we’re learning about cod are the same kind of processes that are likely to play out in a wide range of important fish in this and other regions,” he said.
On Top of Warming, Some Places Getting More Weather Patterns That Bring Heatwaves, Study Says
Daily weather patterns have changed in recent decades, making eastern North America, Europe and western Asia more prone to nastier summer heatwaves that go beyond global warming, a new study finds… In winter, weather pattern shifts have occurred that made extremely cold snaps in central Asia even worse, Horton said. But the study also found an increase in the weather patterns associated with weaker extreme cold snaps in western Asian winters… Diffenbaugh said the changes could be a result of random chance, or a side effect of climate change and melting sea ice as others have theorized… Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis, for example, hailed the work as thorough and “consistent with expected changes associated with a rapidly warming Arctic.”
From Rainy Texas to Scorching India, This Has Been a Month of Strange Weather Around the World
Even for a world getting used to wild weather, May seems stuck on strange. Torrential downpours in Texas that have whiplashed the region from drought to flooding. A heat wave that has killed more than 1,800 people in India. Record 91-degree readings in Alaska, of all places. A pair of top-of-the-scale typhoons in the Northwest Pacific. And a drought taking hold in the East… “Mother Nature keeps throwing us crazy stuff,” Rutgers University climate scientist Jennifer Francis says. “It’s just been one thing after another.”… Francis, Meehl and some other meteorologists say the jet stream is in a rut, not moving nasty weather along… A stuck jet stream, with a bit of a split, explains the extremes in Texas, India, Alaska and the U.S. East, but not the typhoons, Francis says.
Last Call: Tackling Terrorism, a Social Security Fight, Taxes and the GOP
In another sign the planet’s in trouble, NASA and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration announced that last year was the planet’s warmest since record-keeping began in 1880, and last month scientists recorded the highest average December temperatures — ever. Obama’s made climate change a centerpiece of his second term, but the GOP majority in Congress is packed with climate change skeptics in key places… “Anyone that has ever kept a fish tank knows that if you crank up your aquarium heater and dump acid into the water, your fish are in trouble. This is what climate change is doing now to the oceans,” study co-author Malin Pinsky, an ecologist at Rutgers University, said in a statement.
